The Hypnotist's Love Story

Product Information

The suffragettes didn't starve themselves for the vote, so that you girls could starve yourselves for a man.”

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact. This is another original story from Liane Moriarty, which is one of the reasons I enjoy reading her books so much. I don’t think this is the strongest novel in her repertoire, but it was a nice change of pace and certainly held my fascination and attention, as well as keeping me amused and entertained. I decided to read this book as I loved the author's other novel, What Alice Forgot. I preferred the other book, but this one was OK. This book is no exception. I had no idea what to expect when I started this novel. I wasn’t sure if it was a novel of suspense or contemporary fiction, or both. For the most part, I would place this one in the contemporary fiction category, even though there are moments of suspense, but I never felt threatened or worried, exactly, but there was an underlying feeling of unease.

Customer reviews

At first, the novel seems to be the simple story about the girl who got the guy and lost him, and the new girl that keeps him. But it doesn't take long to realize that Moriatry takes us deeper than that. With quirkiness, humor, and mystery, Moriarty delivers a story of the lengths we go to for those we love, and the emotional cost of losing them.

A compelling love triangle ... romance with an edge ... the latest triumph... What lifts this tale to another plane is the level of empathy that runs through the narrative." Australian Women's Weekly Book of the Month I think a lot was made of the female stalking angle, and it is true that four out of five stalkers are men. However, it’s not exactly unheard of for women to stalk men, as has been documented several times with celebrities.

What the reviewers said

I know this book is not nearly as popular as Moriarty's other books, but I really enjoyed it and I would really recommend it to fans of women fiction such as What Alice Forgot by Moriarty or Eleanor Oliphant is completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. At one point, she breaks into the home of her ex-lovers new girlfriend, bakes biscuits in the woman's kitchen, and then leaves them for her on the front porch as a gift. Hilarious.

But, to be clear, the story is not super heavy, or dramatic. It fact, it has that strange, whimsical quality to it that kept things on the lighter side, without losing its intensity. The members of both families and the other minor characters were great as well, it was easy to get a sense of the family dynamics. Wech and Graham executive produce with David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman and Laurie Zaks of Mandeville Television. ABC Studios is the studio. Australian Moriarty ( What Alice Forgot, 2011, etc.) has managed to combine an infectiously lighthearted romance about a Sydney hypnotherapist with a potentially upsetting examination of a stalker’s interior life.

The Hypnotist's Love Story

Moriarty does a great job of creating believable characters, struggling with things that we have all experienced. Insecurities. Loss. Heartbreak. One thing about this author and her books, is that each one is special and very different. Yet, the style of writing has a signature that is unique to this author, and I can’t quite find a way to describe it. Whatever it is about her skill as a writer, it holds me spellbound from start to finish, no matter what genre is represented or the subject matter. There was more teenage angst and more obsessive behavior in this book than there should have been considering the youngest adult character was 35. So many times, in so many ways, this book just didn’t feel appropriate for the age groups that were featured. The characters were not endearingly ‘off center’ in this book, they were annoyingly so. They take their time, drawing you in, with great characters, then things start taking a turn for the worst, and things keep getting worse and worse and then suddenly, someone comes through and things are all neatly tied up at the end with a neat little ribbon. Breathe in. She didn’t give a fig what other people thought! Breathe out. Rubbish. She gave a whole fig tree.”

Tamara Lovatt Smith's narration was excellent! She somehow walked the fine line between making Saskia likable and just short of manic. She really captured all of the characters well--so hard to do, especially in a book with many characters of different ages. I'm still not convinced that hypnotherapy is real. I also was concerned that the main character, Ellen, was excited to have a boyfriend with a stalker. That's not something you should be excited about. Initially, I thought The Hypnotist’s Love Story was going to be a simple contemporary love story but I was surprised that this book offered something a little different. Yes it is about relationships and love – in a number of different forms, but it is also a story of obsession and more importantly, the fixation on the glory days of the past. I like Liane Moriarty’s writing a lot. Her characters are always somewhat off center, yet always very interesting and appealing in so many ways. I also enjoy her plots and her descriptive writing. Maybe it's the age thing, maybe since I'm getting older I like to read about women who are older and to see how they navigate their life.This book was a shaky 3.5 Star read for me and because it felt rushed and not enough time was spent resolving all the issues with any sense of growth or deeper understanding on the part of the characters, I rounded it down to 3 Stars. From the no. 1 New York Times bestselling author of The Husband's Secret, Big Little Lies and new novel Apples Never Fall. There were some controversial moments, and I some thought provoking scenes, which would make for some lively discussion, but overall, this is really a rather curious love story, with each character taking monumental steps toward maturity and stability, and closure. This book was somewhat of a disappointment, however. There is a stalker, old boyfriends, new boyfriends, unresolved parent issues, old girlfriends, new girlfriends, and people who aren’t what they appear to be. All of that should have been interesting. Unfortunately, the only character that really had his act together in any substantial way was an 8 year old boy who didn’t really receive sufficient air time. Maybe that’s why he appeared to be more mature than his elders.